Thread: Possible attack on Iran

The F-15I's have a range of 4,450 that equates to a combat range of 2,200+ km. What makes you think though, if need be and something happen, that they might possibly land those planes in Iraq or refuel without anyone knowing about it? Also the F-16I's have a combat radius of over 2,100km also. The Jericho III has a range of up to 4,800 - 11,000km...

Anyone know, that the possibility is being brought up now, with the US exit strategy in Iraq? Even if the US leaves, how about the air space? Will it still be monitored? Essentially, does Iraq have any detection centers?

Will wait for JAD's comment on this one, he's the one that said back in 2007 it would not happen. Has anything changed much since ? doubtful.

I did see something similar in a blog recently but there were two alternate possibilities. That the troops drawdown in Iraq is the bigger factor for the reconfiguration of US assets in the persian gulf OR they were preparing to strike Iran.

US bracing for a fight in Persian Gulf | Oct 30 2011 | Badrakumar's blog

The New York Times reports Sunday that US is embarking on a big military build-up in the Persian Gulf region.

In the absence of a coherent policy toward Iran, with the loss of military presence in Iraq, with Saudi Arabia inexorably descending into crisis, with the ‘pro-West’ Arab oligarchies getting afraid of the dark, with the Aran Spring poised to arrive in the Persian Gulf, with Egypt preoccupied with its own regeneration and the israelis in existential despair, US is doing what comes most natural to it, namely, arrest the march of history with gunboats and missiles.

The NYT report says that in addition to ‘repositioning’ US combat troops in Kuwait, the naval presence in the Persian Gulf will be beefed up. Conceivably, the frightened Arab oligarchies will be asked to foot the bills for this big deployment. Most interestingly, US is also proposing a new regional security architecture to be choreographed around its military presence which would “integrate air and naval patrols and missile defence.”

Patrick cockburn from the Independent is pushing this 'attack iran' line with re-elections angle.

The most likely motive for the Obama administration's vigorously expressed belief in the plot is that it is preparing the ground for the 2012 presidential election. Mr Obama's economic and social policies are failing and his only undiluted successes have been the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. By dramatising how he frustrated the fiendish plots of the Iranians, Mr Obama can present himself as the president who kept America safe, or at least protect his national security political flank from criticism by the Republicans.

What explains US’s anti-Iran tirade | Oct 29 2011 | Badrakumar's blog

There could be another powerful motive, though. To my mind, Obama is assuaging the fears of the US’s two most important allies in region - Israel and Saudi Arabia - that it is far from the case that the sun is setting for American military might in the Middle East.

The anti-Iran rhetoric coincides with:
a) Iraq snub to the US pleas to allow a long-term troop presence;
b) Syrian regime showing no real sign of cracks yet despite the outside intervention;
c) rise of islamist fervor in the region. All these accentuate Israel’s acute sense of insecurity. Jerusalem Post is bitter about Obama’s announcement of US troop withdrawal from Iraq.

But Saudi Arabia is a case by itself. I am surprised that Al Jazeera featured such a brutally frank assessment of the instability in Saudi Arabia. A decadent regime is tottering and a “critical period of domestic and foreign uncertainty” lies ahead not only for the Kingdom but for the entire region. “[King] Abdullah’s octogenarian line of successors recalls the final years of the Soviet Union, when one infirm leader after another succeeded to power for a brief period of inert rule.” US needs to figure out how to hold the crumbling citadel together and, most important, ensure Iran doesn’t give it a final push.